Her name, Rakhel Peisoty, was changed, like so many others’, at Ellis Island.

She had fled tsarist Russia in 1913 as a teenager and soon found work in New York City’s garment shops.

She readily joined the ILGWU, becoming a national organizer by 1920.

In the late 1920s, Rose went to Los Angeles in an attempt to organize Latina sweatshop workers.

There she helped women workers establish a bilingual labor journal and assisted them in winning a key strike for recognition and higher wages in 1933.

She soon ascended to the position of union vice president and worked closely with the newly formed CIO.

Rose traveled far and wide to organize garment workers.

She led successful strikes throughout the United States and in Montreal and Puerto Rico.

By 1936, she was on the picket lines with striking rubber workers in Akron, Ohio and autoworkers in Flint, Michigan.

She increasingly found herself at odds with ILGWU head, David Dubinsky and other top male union officials over persistent sexism, her radical politics and her opposition to the no-strike pledge during World War II.

Rose resented the fact that though women comprised the overwhelming majority of the union’s membership, she continued to be the only woman union officer.

Frustrated by the chauvinism she experienced, Rose resigned from her post as vice president and later from the ILGWU executive board in 1944.

She continued as a sewing machine operator, remained active at the local level and published two memoirs.

That was the day the General Society of Mechanics and Tradesmen of the City of New York was founded.

Twenty-two skilled craftsmen, with the motto, “By Hammer and Hand All Arts Do Stand,” met on Pine Street to form a benevolent organization that could provide cultural, educational and social services to craftsmen and their families.

Two months later, founders met for their annual meeting.

They represented many of the city’s trades including hatters, butchers, sail makers, bolters and comb makers.

In his book, Chants Democratic, historian Sean Wilentz states, the General Society was “intended to be a semi-political umbrella organization for all of the city’s independent mechanics, to help oversee the trades and secure favorable legislation from local and national government. The group captured the ideal of mutuality and craft pride essential to artisan fraternities since the Middle Ages.”

The General Society opened one of the city’s first free schools at a time when there were no public schools.

It established a tuition-free Mechanics Institute, the General Society Library and Lecture Series.

The Mechanics Institute, founded in 1858, continues to provide free evening trades-related instruction.

The Library, established in 1820 is the second oldest library in New York City.

It is also one of the few remaining membership circulating libraries.

Its collections and archives span two centuries.

The General Society continues its tradition of public lectures in the form of The Labor, Literature and Landmarks Series.

More recently, it has added the Artisan Lecture Series that features lectures by master artisans.

The series also promotes the work and art of skilled craftsmen.

The General Society has been at its current location at 20 west 44th Street since 1885.

That was the day mounted police charged 50 janitors and their supporters during a protest in Houston.

SEIU’s Justice for Janitors campaign had been organizing for years throughout the South and Southwest.

Modeled on success achieved in California, SEIU broadened their campaign to Houston and Miami.

The union called a month long strike against the cities’ largest cleaning companies.

Protests and civil disobedience actions continued throughout the strike.

Hundreds of strikers routinely marched through the streets of Houston, beating drums and hauling bags of garbage into the middle of intersections to highlight the key services they provided to the city.

They were subject to repeated threats of firings and arrests.

When police charged at the janitors, it served to turn public support in favor of the strikers.

By the end of the month, Tom Balanoff and SEIU Local 1 in Chicago claimed victory for 5300 Houston janitors.

The Chicago local had been central to the three-year campaign in Houston.

Days earlier, liquid methyl mercaptan had solidified in piping, causing a blockage.

Workers attempted to clear it by spraying the pipes with hot water.

They didn’t realize they had cleared the blockage, which then created high-pressure buildup of the chemical in other piping.

When two workers went to drain those pipes in a routine procedure, they were overcome by toxic vapor.

Another two workers answering the subsequent distress call were also killed.

DuPont blamed workers for the release of the toxic gas.

But the CSB found a number of violations.

The building where the release occurred had an inadequate toxic gas detection system, ventilation fans were not working and workers were not required to wear additional breathing protection for tasks they performed there.

The standard reduced permissible exposure by 75% to protect nearly a million workers from damage to nervous, urinary and reproductive systems.

As early as 1908, Alice Hamilton, the mother of occupational medicine, noted that lead had endangered workers as far back as “the first half-century after Christ.”

In their book, Deceit and Denial: The Deadly Politics of Industrial Pollution, historians Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner add that “throughout her distinguished career, Hamilton was deeply involved in uncovering the relationship between lead and disease in the American workforce.”

Hamilton’s groundbreaking research on the effects of lead paved the way for a growing uproar against its continued use.

After the Occupational Safety and Health Act passed in 1970, occupational and public health activists pushed hard for a lead standard.

A new generation of industrial hygienists emphasized how unsound, industry-driven conclusions regarding “safe lead levels” impacted women workers and workers of color.

Industry had long asserted that women and African-Americans were simply more susceptible to lead poison, which served to justify discrimination in hiring.

Some unions accepted these terms, if only to demand a stringent lead standard that included immediate implementation of engineering controls.

But leading hygienists like Jeanne Stellman blasted these arguments.

Stellman insisted such conclusions reflected racial and gender bias rather than any credible scientific evidence.

She added that men, women and children, regardless of race or ethnicity, were all adversely affected by lead exposure.

The final standard adopted was considered a compromise.

Discrimination in hiring has continued and enforcement proves difficult.

Its busiest year was 1907 with more than a million arriving to enter the United States.

During World War I, the Island was used as a detention center for presumed enemies and those considered foreign-born subversives.

After Congress passed the restrictive Immigration Act of 1924, arrivals entering the country slowed to a trickle.

Then Ellis Island became primarily a detention and deportation center.

During World War II, thousands of Germans, Italians and Japanese made up the majority of those detained, awaiting deportation.

It also served as a military hospital for returning servicemen and training center for the Coast Guard.

By 1950, Ellis Island served as a holding center for arriving Communists and Fascists, who were prevented entrance under the recently passed Internal Security Act.

A Norwegian seaman who had overstayed his leave was released the day the Island closed and told to catch the next ship back to Norway.

In 1965, President Johnson made Ellis Island part of the National Park Service.

A massive restoration of the Island began in 1984, organized by Lee Iacocca’s Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation.

It reopened as the Ellis Island Immigration Museum in 1990, featuring numerous exhibits, publicly accessible immigration records and the award-winning film documentary, “Island of Hope, Island of Tears.”